


She Watches

by yujacheong



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Dark Past, Family Secrets, Gen, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-10-25 09:50:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20722247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujacheong/pseuds/yujacheong
Summary: Mon Mothma watches, but sometimes she doesn'tsee.WhathadPalpatine seen in Anakin Skywalker, anyway? What had he hoped to gain? Looking back on it, knowing what they knew now, there had to have been something, some specific reason. Why the keen interest?





	She Watches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ancslove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancslove/gifts).

It’d become a cliché, perhaps, to say that you’re old enough to remember the Old Republic. In Mon Mothma’s case, however, it was literally true. She was a Senator; she was _there_.

And she remembered the Jedi Order. She’d never been close personal friends with any of its members, but other Senators definitely had. Bail and Padmé…even Palpatine himself had been especially close to a young Jedi Knight he’d considered promising. That young man’s name had been Anakin Skywalker.

_Skywalker_. Mon hadn’t expected to hear _that_ name again.

She believed in the Force. Of course she did – because she knew it was _real_. While holoimages could be manipulated, no one who had ever seen a Jedi in action firsthand was left with a shadow of a doubt that some things in the galaxy were bigger than oneself.

Believing in the Force was not, however, the same as having faith in the people who wielded it. Mon was a politician – who better to understand how great power could be used for both great good _and_ great evil?

So when she heard that the pilot who’d taken that one-in-a-billion shot at the Death Star was a farm boy from Tatooine named Luke _Skywalker_, she’d felt a tiny twitch of anxiety pulling at the outer edge of her left eyelid. But by that time she’d already been transported to a remote location, and she’d had no opportunity to meet and speak with this unlikely young man herself at the metaling ceremony. She simply couldn’t be sure he was trustworthy.

Her anxieties increased when the rumors started. Luke Skywalker was brave but impulsive, they said, and the son of Anakin Skywalker. He couldn’t possibly be the flesh and blood son of _Anakin Skywalker_, though, could he? Those like Mon old enough to remember ought to remember that Jedi Knights weren’t supposed to have children.

When Mon finally had the chance to meet Luke in person and watch him in unguarded moments, however, any doubts she might have been harboring about who his father was were dispelled. The resemblance was uncanny. It was also deeply concerning.

This Luke Skywalker was possessed of great power, and…well.

No one, including Mon, had thought anything of it at the time, but… What _had_ Palpatine seen in Anakin Skywalker, anyway? What had he hoped to gain? Looking back on it, knowing what they knew now, there had to have been something, some specific reason. Why the keen interest? His reliance upon Force-sensitive inquisitors and enforcers like Vader as Emperor suggested that his interest had not been merely academic. Why… Why… Why…

Leia vouched for Luke, though, and _Leia_, Mon did trust. Leia had a good heart, and if she was too quick to anger, well, everyone had their faults and age ought to temper those. Watching Leia brought Padmé to mind, and Mon had always believed Padmé to be among the most temperate and wise of her Senatorial peers.

After the Battle of Endor, a new rumor started: that Luke and Leia were twins separated at birth and _both _of them, not just Luke, had the potential to become powerful in the Force.

Mon couldn’t quite put her anxiety into words, so instead she just asked Leia if it was true.

Leia told her it was. The Force was in her blood. Any child she carried should inherit it.

The twins’ birth mother was Padmé Amidala. Mon had misjudged her friend’s wisdom, it seemed. Foolish in the extreme to conduct a secret relationship with a Jedi Knight – and to produce such powerful children with him! At least Anakin Skywalker had always used his powers for the greater good. He’d been a valiant soldier during the Clone Wars and a true hero till his untimely end on Mustafar.

Nonetheless.

Mon Mothma had been watching the whole time, but somehow, she’d not seen any of it. How could she have been so blind? She couldn’t help but wonder what else she’d watched unfold over the course of her life and failed to truly _see_.


End file.
